CLEVELAND – The buzzer sounded, a sellout crowd erupted in cheers, streamers fell from the rafters and the Cleveland Cavaliers celebrated a payback victory over the Lakers on Wednesday at Quicken Loans Arena.

The Lakers walked from the court in a daze, unable or unwilling to believe what they had witnessed. They ended their seven-game trip with their third consecutive loss, a mind-boggling 104-99 defeat to the Cavaliers.

A little more than a month ago, the Lakers beat the Cavaliers by 55 points at Staples Center after exposing every weakness of a young, inexperienced and injury-riddled team. Wednesday, the Cavaliers exposed the Lakers’ many shortcomings.

“Painful, painful loss,” Pau Gasol said. “Very disappointing. It’s tough to understand. You tell me, man. I wish I had all the answers, the right answers, so I could fix it and these kinds of games wouldn’t happen.

“I would love to know how and why.”

After defeating New Orleans, Memphis, Boston and New York to start their trip, the Lakers lost to Orlando, Charlotte and Cleveland. They staggered to the All-Star break with a 38-19 record with 25 games remaining in the regular season.

“Very negative, very negative,” Gasol said of the end of the trip. “The taste in our mouths after the last three losses is very bad. We weren’t able to bounce back and get our minds right. I don’t think we overlooked anybody.

“We just didn’t play well enough to beat them. We knew if we didn’t set the tone early and play the right way early, they could get confident and they could get comfortable and they could see a chance to beat us.

“I’m not happy, obviously. You have to feel this pain as a team to dig in and fight. It’s a good thing the break is here for us, but it’s also a good time to look at these last couple of games and think about them and realize what we’ve done.”

What they did was fail to play with any sense of urgency. They were lackadaisical to start the game, didn’t shoot well enough to build any momentum in the early moments and then played defense as if their sneakers were nailed to the floor.

They also wasted a superb game from Gasol, who had team-leading totals of 30 points and 20 rebounds in 40:44. He made eight of 15 shots and all 14 free throws.

He also had three assists.

Andrew Bynum, Gasol’s fellow 7-footer, had a night to forget. Bynum scored only six points on 2-for-12 shooting with six rebounds and two blocked shots in 22 foul-plagued minutes. He later said it was the worst shooting game of his career.

“I couldn’t buy a basket,” he said.

But what troubled him most was the Lakers’ lack of defensive cohesion.

“The defense is not there,” he said. “We’re not believing in the principles of our defense. We’re not doing it. You can’t be weak everywhere defensively. I don’t think we’re executing the ones that are in place right now.

“(The defensive problems have happened) over the last couple of weeks, I would say. We were still having issues (during the victories over the Hornets, Grizzlies, Celtics and Knicks). We just played a little bit better offensively.”

Kobe Bryant scored 17 points, but left the arena without speaking to reporters for the second consecutive game. He also ducked out after the Lakers’ 109-89 loss Monday to the Bobcats, their widest margin of defeat in 2010-11.

Cleveland coach Byron Scott walked into the locker room to speak with Bryant, a former Lakers teammate. They chatted for a few minutes then they walked into the corridor, with Bryant telling a Lakers official he would talk to reporters Friday.

That would be media day at All-Star Weekend.

Ramon Sessions scored a season-high 32 points for the Cavaliers, who won in regulation for the first time since Nov. 27. Their losing streak started after an overtime win over the Knicks on Dec. 18. It ended with an overtime win Friday over the Clippers.

“I didn’t say anything,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said when asked what he told the team. “I can say lots come Monday. I think they took the break before the game. I think they went on break before the game started.”

Elliott Teaford covers the Clippers and the NBA for the Southern California News Group. He has written about hockey for the past five years and is looking forward to thawing out after so many days and nights sitting in frozen rinks. He also covered the Lakers for five seasons, including their back-to-back NBA championships in 2009 and '10. He once made a jump shot over future Utah Jazz center Mark Eaton during a pickup game in 1980 at Cypress College.

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